The invention arose during continuing development efforts in breakaway basketball goals, including that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,583,732, incorporated herein by reference.
Various basketball goal assemblies are known in the art which will give or breakaway in response to a given downward threshold force on the rim such as a slam dunk. The breakaway goal protects the player by absorbing energy in order to reduce wrist, hand and arm injuries. The backboard is also protected from breaking or shattering.
The present invention provides further protection to the player by additionally enabling the rim to breakaway, or pivot, upwardly, in the event the player hits the rim with his head or another part of his body during his upward jump.
The assembly of the present invention also provides differential breakaway forces, wherein the upward threshold force causing upward pivoting of the rim is less than the downward threshold force causing downward pivoting of the rim. The greater downward threshold force before the rim pivots retains a normal rebound characteristic. There is no need for such higher threshold force before the rim will pivot upwardly. The structure of the present assembly provides a reduced upward threshold force, to in turn provide greater safety for the player.
The invention further provides breakaway in four directions for further safety. The rim can pivot rightwardly to a rightward pivoted position in each of horizontal and upwardly and downwardly pivoted positions of the rim. The rim can also pivot leftwardly to a leftward pivoted position in each of the horizontal and upwardly and downwardly pivoted positions of the rim.
In a further aspect of the invention, a backplate is provided with strength-increasing structure to prevent bowing of the backplate away from the backboard upon a slam dunk. The backplate includes a structural rib at its top in the form of a generally horizontally planar portion extending forwardly which in combination with forwardly extending sidewalls serves the additional function of covering the gap between the backplate and a forward mounting plate when the rim is pivoted downwardly, to prevent a player from pinching his fingers in such gap, without requiring the provision of a separate additional protective pinch gap shroud such as shown at 58 in incorporated U.S. Pat. No. 4,583,732.
In another aspect, the invention provides a universal basketball goal assembly selectively providing a choice between a breakaway basketball goal and a non-breakaway basketball goal, without changing the manufacturing operation producing the goal assembly. The invention enables universal parts to be produced on an assembly line, without special operations, for example coining as in incorporated U.S. Pat. No. 4,583,732, for those goals which are to be breakaway goals. Instead, a single goal assembly line is run through the factory, and designated components are merely added or deleted by the manufacturer and/or the customer for the application desired. The invention eliminates special manufacturing sequences, steps and scheduling, and achieves significant cost reduction through such universal application.